I don't understand how Nvidia didn't up their texture address and filtering when they reworked their SP with GT200. The old G92 cores had 8 texture address/filter for every 16SP but GT200 has 8 texture address/filter for every 24SP. Those textures did a whole lot more for games than just higher SP clocks with G92 with modern games.

GT200 has the same 8 by 8 texturing ability just like G92 but only 10 clusters of 24 SP instead of 8 by 16SP which equals out to 80tmu. Texture fillrate was the biggest difference when comparing G92 vs G80 and why G92 was able to beat it in lower resolutions or get very close to high resolution with much lower memory bandwidth and less ROP. If they did 12 by 12 which would be the exact same number as G92 SP/texture ratio it would have 120 tmu instead of 80. GT200 is inferior far as texturing ability when you compare ratio to G92.

GeForce 9800 GTX 10.8 pixel fillrate 43.2 bilinear fillrate 21.6 FP16 fillrate 70.4 GB/s

GeForce GTX 260 16.1 pixel fillrate 41.5 bilinear fillrate 20.7 FP16 fillrate 111.9 GB/s

GeForce GTX 280 19.3 pixel fillrate 48.2 bilinear fillrate 24.1 FP16 fillrate 141.7 GB/s

Radeon HD 4850 10.0 pixel fillrate 25.0 bilinear fillrate 25.0 FP 16 Fillrate 64 GB/s

Radeon HD 4870 12.0 pixel fillrate 30.0 bilinear fillrate 30.0 FP 16 Fillrate 115.2 GB/s

Games don't need all that processing power as of yet. Most games off loads to textures and back to the memory for the most part straight from Nvidia by nRollo. So having more fillrate makes the biggest difference when you want the performance NOW long as you aren't shader limited. Sure 280gtx has more fillrate than 9800gtx but in reality it doesn't have that much more. 260gtx has even less than 9800gtx. This is where bandwidth comes into play with GT200 where it's not so limited compared to 9800gtx which you see the performance gains from most games. Just look at any of the reviews. You will see that 260gtx isn't that far off in performance compared to 9800gtx only when AA is applied in some ridiculous high resolution does it seem like it's more faster because of bandwidth advantages. Nvidia made a future product like 2900xt tried to do. But it's still not happening.

Alot of that I really didnt understand but I agree with the GTX 200's not living up to the price! I'm disappointed in Nvidia for flooding the market with GPUs that for one arent that much faster than previous gen GPUs and two are way expensive.
Your right about games not really needin all that power too. ONly game that stresses my set up is Crysis.... I'm glad these cards were released. Now it makes the GX2 cheaper and more affordable. It would be even nicer if the GX2 would get down in the 300's. Making it that much more affordable.
I just dont understand why Nvidia would even release the GTX 260. It's going to perform on a similar level as the GX2 and 9800GTX.... and cost much more. It's so stupid IMO. They should have waited it out for a good few more months... let eveyone continue to buy 8 series cards and 9 series cards and introduce the GTX 200's with more performance this upcoming Christmas. That would have been good for marketing and not flooding the market with GPU after GPU... All these cards Nvidia released ie 8800GT, 8800GTS 512, 9800GTX, 9800GX2, GTX 200 perform rather similarly on a price performance standpoint and it just doesnt make much sense with the naming and the series designation.
Alright... I've ranted too much.

You know... Come to think of it... I think we should boycott Nvidia!

Agreed,i say NVIDIA must do something like the 8800 series, remember them?
8800 was truly a revolution over 7900 series

Even Crysis doesn't need that much processing power if you look at any of the reviews. A 260gtx is whole 3-5 fps faster than 9800gtx with much lower memory bandwidth and whole lot less ROP.

In the situation of Geforce 7 and 8 it was a time when we needed more processing power than Geforce 7 can dish out. But those days have past and gone where Geforce 8 have enough processing power.

Fact is fillrate is king combined with right amount of memory bandwidth.

Maziar!!! I haven't seen you in a while. Where have you been?

NEVERMIND!!! I see what you are saying now.

TY Marv, I digested most of it, then reread it again and got the rest. The advantage nVidia had over ATI has been lessened by ....nVidia. So, youre saying future games will require higher pixel rates. Could this be so forward looking that the newer DX model will make texturing that much easier? And like ATI who did the shader AA thing, nVidia is doing the pixel/process thing?

For instant gratification you need more texture fillrate with right combination of bandwidth which GT200 doesn't deliver that much more than G92. Not more SP. The bandwidth bottleneck is gone for the most part. Nvidia want maximum performance in DX10 & future games. This will require more shading power than G80's ratio would provide. In these kinds of games, GT200 performs well and the increase in per clock performance compared to G80 is close to the increase in ALU performance per clock.

This is what Nvidia is aiming for 260gtx beating out gx2 but that's really upto the developers not Nvidia but what Nvidia got is slightly better performance than a single 9800gtx in most of the current titles out. Just some ridiculous bandwidth starved situations does GT200 prevail. Do you see what ATI was aiming at the time when they made 2900xt? Nvidia is just following suit and is just catching up in that dept.

Couldnt this also mean a lean (maybe too far) for thier gpgpu direction? leaving game capabilties on the lower side. And if so, this could be easily rectified in the refresh?

With CUDA coming to light and this overcompensation of processing power in the new GPUs....it looks like NV has a master plan brewing...

With a refresh Nvidia needs to up the texture ratio by 2x folds. Then the instant gratification of performance for old or new just like how 8800gt was able to beat down G80GTS with less memory bandwidth and rop. More shader is longevity and the future but not present time.

If you see my review about my 8800gs I talk about texture fillrate compared to 9600gt. It's true that more SP does help in these low end cards to a certain extent but that performance had much to do with having more texture fillrate compared to 9600gt while having less rop and less memory bandwidth and still comparable performance.

Doesnt it make more sense for GPU engineers/manufactures to develop the cards around bad a$% games rather than game developers to develop games for the GPU?

It's really upto coders and it's out of Nvidia's hands.

The original DX10 was modified by M$ for nVidas sake. This was a exception, not the rule. Looks like I need to read up on DX11. Any sources?